I haven't owned a Remington (anything) in years. And started to pass on this one too, until I saw that it was one of the older guns, then my interest peaked because I know the older guns are typically better quality than newer guns.

I'm debating on whether to re-blue the barrel and mag tube. It wouldn't hurt it either way. I don't see a lot of collector value here considering the overall condition of the gun when I picked it up. It's been used, no doubt there. But was taken pretty good care of overall considering that it's more than 50 years old from what I can tell from the date codes.

I am definitely going to add a mag extension. That's a given. Probably not much else.

1980
Remington introduced a new stock styling and checkering pattern on all Model 870 shotguns.

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I noticed that my stock and forend has no checkering. And while the gun I have doesn't have the same style forend that's in the picture above, the butt pad is made the same, and there are things that make me agree with you because I don't know what kind of coating is on the receiver, but there are things that make me think it's older too. Or at least a lot of older parts too, but I don't know what the point of that would be. ????

And the mag tube had as much wear on the blue as the barrel did. Not just in the back where the forend was sliding against it, but in front near the barrel lug too.

Either way, I'm going to clean it up a little. If nothing else, I'll throw it on my 4 wheeler for snakes

It looks like a really interesting shotgun John. Congrats on a slick shooter at a very decent price.

My thoughts are that it is a Frankenstein assembly. The receiver isn't old and it's been spray painted. I am thinking that it isn't machined from bar stock like they did way back when. More like stamped. The wood and barrel are just fascinating as they are certainly vintage.

Can you get a date of manufacture off the serial number? That barrel is freaking priceless. Is is choked FULL or Modified?

So, according to the above, even the barrel proof markings are an enigma to itself. It has markings from various dates.

The J would indicate that the barrel was made either in;

1940, 1962 (which is what I thought originally), but the star before the 12 gauge would indicate post 1969, and the other options of dating the barrel would include: 1989 or while it didn't mention 2015, would make sense from looking at the chart if it repeats as it has done in the past.

So, perhaps an '89 gun? Would that correlate with what nitesite and bobster observations?

Shot about 3 or 4 inches high at 25 with slugs and buck, but patterned really well.

Removed the front bead when I got home, (actually tried to unscrew the front and it must have been pressed in and it broke, already drilled it out and re-tapped the hole) and am going to go with a tritium front. The extra height of the tritium style front sights, will put the impacts a little lower on the target. That should have me about as good as I'm going to get it where fixed sights are concerned.